Musings from a Southern software developer

Pulling Away

I have felt a particular way for a long time. It has been a nebulous, vague feeling for most of it, but recently its started to coalesce in my head. Its a realization that I am pulling away.

I think it started with our second daughter, Adeline. Raising two kids is without a doubt, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Its incredibly rewarding, but it has taken its toll on my physically, emotionally, and mentally. At the hospital when Adeline was born my mom said to me that raising two kids is four times as hard. Extrapolating, I expect three kids is eight times as hard. That is how kids work I suppose. The chaos magnifies. I simply don’t think that I could have a third, despite strong wants some days.

I’m now 32, and the world makes less and less sense to me. Trends don’t interest me. I look at communities like Instagram, and Snapchat and I just don’t get it. Facebook has changed from my college days. What was a way to write to your friends is now a trash media outlet and everyone on it is angry. Maybe I boxed myself into some political bubble in their news feed algorithm. I’ve stopped visiting them, along with Twitter, Untapped, Yelp, Strava, and more. Its all needless.

I don’t really get the new movie trends, like the hundreds of superhero comic to movie adaptations. The first few were neat, but we keep remaking them. I don’t follow sports. I have a hard time listening to new music on the radio. New fashions like vaping and skinny jeans just irritate me. Video games have gone to shit now that publishers are wrapped up in multiplayer and add-ons. Programming just feels like an endless reinvention of the wheel with diminishing progress.

Maybe it’s just what getting older feels like. Maybe it’s wisdom. Not falling prey to the fear of missing out. Focusing on what matters to me as an individual. Quit making everything a competition. Quit trying to impress others with checkins, and pictures showing how much fun you are having. Quit seeking peer approval.

Then last night the presidential election happened. It hit me in a way I didn’t expect. I educated myself on the issues, while staying away from mainstream media, talk shows, and largely out of debates with peers. I figured most of the drama was just for viewership by the media outlets. I believed that some people felt differently from me, but more were like me than not like me. But when the polling results came in, I found myself angry, confused, fighting back tears. It meant more than past elections. I’ve voted for losing candidates, and went on with life. This one stung. To me it was a signal of the end of what I understood our country to be.

I’ve been in this mindset for months now, and the election pushed me to write about it. I needed to get the way I’m feeling out of my head and down on paper. Is this just aging? Is this stress? Diet and exercise? Is this objectively where we are as a civilization, and everyone is waiting for it to change just like me? Have I just become bored, or complacent with my life?

I certainly feel old, tired, slow. Unnaturally. And I’m not sure what to do about it other than writing a cathartic blog post.